Azerbaijani rights defender Anar Mamedli receives Vaclav Havel Award

Anar Mamedli, an Azerbaijani rights defender and the head of the Centre for Monitoring Elections and Democracy Training (CMEDT) was awarded the Human Rights Award named after Vaclav Havel for 2014. This was announced today during the opening ceremony of the autumn session of the PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe). The Award was given to Anar's father, since the laureate himself is in prison, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 26 a court in Baku convicted the head of the CEMDT Anar Mamedli and two other activists – Bashir Suleimanly and Elnur Mamedov. All the three were charged with tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, abuse of office, embezzlement and service forgery. Mamedli, in particular, was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison.

Apart from Mamedli, this year's nominees were the Israeli organization "B'tselem", engaged in protecting Palestinians' rights, and the Malta-based branch of the international organization named "Jesuit", which protects refugees' rights.

During the ceremony, held on September 29 in the PACE session hall, it was announced, on behalf of the founders of the Award, that Mammedli was elected "for his contribution to the protection of the right to free elections, and development of civil society and democracy in Azerbaijan."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.